Football
10y

Manuel Pellegrini questions UEFA's Champions League seedings

Manuel Pellegrini has called on UEFA to change the Champions League's seeding system after complaining that Manchester City were pitted in another "Group of Death."

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The Premier League champions begin their European campaign against Bundesliga winners Bayern Munich on Wednesday, while their pool also includes Roma, who were runners-up in Serie A, and CSKA Moscow, who claimed the Russian title last season.

City were only in the second pool of seeds, because of their UEFA coefficient, whereas Chelsea and Arsenal, who finished third and fourth in the Premier League respectively last season, are both top seeds as a result of their superior European records in recent years.

And City manager Pellegrini feels clubs should be rewarded for triumphing in their domestic leagues.

"It [the Champions League] is for the champions," he told City's website. "I think that the champions of England and the champions of the German league, with both leagues being among the best leagues in Europe, they deserve to be in pot 1.

"This season we again have Bayern Munich, Manchester City and CSKA Moscow. I do not think it is good to repeat the group exactly as the year before.

"I don't think it's good that the teams who play qualification because they finished fourth in their domestic leagues are in pot 1, where the strongest teams should be.

"In our group we have three domestic champions, the English champions, the German champions, and the Russian champions. So our group seems a bit unbalanced.

"I think we need to find a modification whereby, for example, all teams who play qualification go into pot 4, and all champions of their respective leagues and have a lot of points in Europe [a high coefficient] go into pot 1.

"There is a need for some modifications to not let something like what happened to us happen again, and then on the other hand for the teams who play preliminaries to not appear with the most important ones in Europe."

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